Oliver made it to the entrance of the corridor before they followed. Not the alpha and his second—or any of Li’s people that he could tell—but a mixed group of four exiting the entrance to Li’s domain as he reached the end of the street. By the time they’d registered it was him, he’d turned the corner.

  There’d been one other, as well, a solitary figure who’d been standing at the hole-in-the-wall from which Oliver had bought his coffee and roll. Oliver moved into a brisk walk, heading for the next turn he needed to make.

  Ideally, he wanted three corners between him and his pursuers before he tried for one of the less well-known routes. The problem was he didn’t think he was going to get it. He made the second corner, then used his implant to try and access the surveillance cams.

  The system booted him out just as fast, but not before something tried to latch on.

  “Well, fuck me, that was fast,” he muttered, and rolled into a jog, ignoring the stares he earned from others in the corridor.

  Behind him, someone shouted an alert.

  “Dammit,” Oliver cursed. Option Number Two was looking good.

  More shouts erupted behind him, and his implant pinged. It only pinged once, and then it let the call through. It looked like Li had been taking lessons in manners from Florey.

  “The four agents sent by Xanil-Blue will be busy for the next five minutes, and then the Justiciars will arrive. I suggest you make the most of it.”

  “The Hell?” was out before Oliver could stop it, and Li snickered.

  “That’s two you owe me.”

  “Two?”

  “One for the delaying tactic, and one for me having to get my people out of the lock-up once the Justiciars are done chewing them out.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Move your ass, Landy. They won’t be the only ones.”

  Oliver moved, taking a service corridor that let him leave the main walkway. He didn’t slow his pace, but stepped out of a jog and into a run, taking another turn. This one led him through the loading docks of a spare parts broker, and Oliver threw a credit stick at the security guard as he went.

  “For the trouble,” he called, and bolted through the storage area and into the shop-front proper.

  He took a sharp left and ran into the next shop, throwing the cashier another cred stick and kicking his way through the door into the storage area behind her. He really hoped they hadn’t remodeled since he’d last come this way.

  To his relief the stairs down into the second level were still there and accessible, even if there was a curtain over the door leading into them.

  “Crap. I’ll call ahead.” Li’s voice made Oliver jump and he swore he was going to get Lewis to take a damn good look at his implant when his friend was conscious again…

  …if Lewis was still talking to him, by then.

  Oliver thundered down the stairs, surprised to find a guard in the small landing at the bottom.

  The guy’s eyes widened and he went for the pistol at his belt.

  Oliver gave a roar, and material tore as he pushed himself into his hybrid form, felling the guard with a single punch. He didn’t stop to catch him, letting him fall as he kicked in the door.

  “Four,” Li told him, as he burst into the small cellar beyond.

  At first Oliver wanted to ask why, but the scene that met his eyes was all the explanation he needed.

  Oh… He’d run right into a packaging operation, and Li’s comment about calling ahead made a sudden sickening sense. The guards just inside the door would have taken him down before he’d had time to see them, and that’s only if the guards on the other side of the room hadn’t gotten to him first.

  If Li hadn’t called ahead… Well, they wouldn’t be holding the door open for a start.

  Oliver snarled as he ran through, flipping over the railing on the other side of the landing beyond the door to hit the ground on all fours in the passage beyond.

  “And that’s five,” Li said, as a shower of sparks lit the corridor ahead.

  “Did you… Did you just take out the surveillance system?”

  “Why not? Xanil were in the process of hacking all the systems, and you need to reach Zeta-Four without being seen.”

  Zeta-Four. It had been the passage Oliver was heading for. He slowed, and Li chuckled.

  “You know there’s no point in changing direction, now. We both have the same map in our heads.”

  Oliver groaned and broke into a trot again. Li was right. Zeta-Four was the only viable route to the Observatory Reserve, especially now he had no-one on his tail.

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked, and momentary silence greeted him.

  “Because you’re a friend?” Li asked. “Does it have to be more than that?”

  “I…didn’t know what to expect.”

  “Florey knows another side of me,” Li told him, “but everyone needs a friend, and I value that in you.”

  Oliver was so stunned he almost stopped.

  “Don’t thank me,” Li added. “I’m still keeping count.”

  That broke the tension, and Oliver chuckled.

  “Four, right?”

  “Nice try, Landy. It’s five…six, now, and you know it.”

  “Six?” Oliver found the hatch he was looking for, and groaned as it opened in front of him.

  “Sure. You don’t think I keep this thing locked for fun, do you?”

  “You’re not going to swear me to secrecy?” Oliver asked, stepping through, and slowing to a cautious walk.

  “Do I need to?” Li’s voice sounded light, but Oliver heard a hint of vulnerability in it.

  He shook his head. “No. You know I don’t go in for that sort of thing.”

  “Not unless you have a contract for it,” Li reminded him.

  “Do you know how many contracts I’ve left alone because I thought you might be connected?”

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  “Another reason you’re still breathing,” Li told him, and Oliver’s breath caught.

  Now, he knew the shadows were real—and a lot darker than he’d imagined, if Li had contemplated killing him. One day, if he hadn’t been leaving, he and Li might even have found themselves on opposing teams…and he never reneged on a contract.

  “And you will continue to remain so,” Li added, “but not if you don’t keep moving. My people are expecting you, and the path is clear.”

  Expecting him? Oliver wondered, as he moved down the tunnel, wishing his steps didn’t echo so loud.

  He discovered what Li meant when he cracked open a door that should have been some long-deserted living quarters.

  “Don’t shoot,” the woman’s voice was hard, “but Mr. Li said you’d need these and I was to dispose of your old ones.”

  Oliver stuck his head around the door and saw a stocky brunette holding a plas-wrapped package of clothing. She set them onto a recently occupied bunk and stepped back to the door on the other side of the room.

  “I’ll make sure no one enters. Knock when you wish to leave.”

  She didn’t wait for him to reply, but stepped out, pulling the door closed behind her. Oliver tensed for the sound of locking bars, and relaxed when none came.

  “Don’t keep her waiting,” Li advised. “You’ve interrupted her in the middle of her rest break and she hasn’t had her kaffee, yet.”

  Oliver shifted back to human form, wishing Li had thought of footwear, too. The boots he was wearing hadn’t weathered the shift too well.

  Still, beggars can’t be choosers, he thought, dressing as quickly as he could. Looking around, he couldn’t see anywhere to put the remains of the overalls he’d been wearing on the run. In the end, he just stuffed them into the bag the new clothes had come out of.

  “That’s seven,” Li informed him as he raised his hand to knock on the door.

  “Seven,” Oliver repeated doubtfully, and Li explained.

  “For the clothes—and not making you dress where I could have you watched more closely. Maybe I should make it eight?”

  Oliver thought about telling him to do what he wanted, and then decided that was a bad idea. It was one thing to have Li free of any debt to him, and an entirely worse thing to be owing the man seven or eight favors. Knowing what the guy was into, made him worry about what he might be asked to do in repayment.

  “Seven it is then,” Li said, and Oliver breathed a sigh of relief.

  Li chuckled, but the woman was waiting for his knock and opened the door. She looked him over with a critical eye, pausing when she saw his boots. She frowned, then shrugged.

  “This way.”

  Pushing his misgivings to one side, and making sure to keep his head down as they left the living quarters to cross a very-much-in-use mess hall, Oliver found himself quickly guided to a hatch. It opened out into a little-used section of Lunar One.

  It wasn’t very far from the Observatory Reserve and Oliver breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to say ‘thank you,’ but the woman had already shut the hatch and was locking it into place. Faced with a blank wall, Oliver glanced around for the surveillance cameras.

  “You’re clear, now,” Li informed him, “but this is where I’ll take my leave. Safe travels.”

  Oliver watched him cut the link, and then leaned against the wall long enough to make sure the man was out of his implant. There were friends and then there were friends. With everything he’d learned about Li in the last half hour, he wasn’t exactly sure which category the man fell into.

  It wasn’t that he was ungrateful for his help, just that…there were some shadows he couldn’t abide, and Li had put him in a quandary. While he didn’t want to think his friend had crossed that line, he was almost certain he had—and that Li didn’t regret it…which meant Oliver was going to have to think about how he’d handle it.

  Deciding it was a quandary that would have to wait, Oliver looked up and down the corridor and pushed off the wall. He started when his implant pinged again, but was relieved when the call waited. At least some of his security was holding.

  Checking to make sure he was still off the grid, and laying down some extra measures against intrusion, he leant back against the wall, and answered it.

  “Speak,” he ordered, and waited, keeping an eye on his surroundings.

  “Our data, Mr. Landstrom. We will find you.”

  “You’ll have…” Oliver began, as the call ended.

  His defenses sparked with alerts at an attempted intrusion, and then flashed green.

  Oliver sighed. “Best get this over with,” he muttered, and pinged the number that had just called.

  It rang once, and then went live. Oliver started speaking before it could hang up, again. He assumed they knew who he was.

  “Contact my agent. I am organizing a safe drop point. You will get your data, but I need to ensure my partner’s survival.”

  He heard someone take a breath to answer, and then the call was cut.

  “Motherfu—” he began, only to be cut off, again.

  “I think he was about to remind you they had a safe drop-off point,” Florey informed him, tutting as she came on-line.

  “How long have you been in my head?” Oliver asked, and she smiled.

  “Honey, I never left.”

  He swallowed. “You never left?”

  “No, sweetie. I never leave my transports alone.”

  Oliver wished he’d known that, before he’d run through Li’s operations.

  “So, you know…”

  “I know all about Mr. Li’s intervention and assistance,” she confirmed. “What I’m going to do about the other data I’ve collected, I don’t know—and that is because you are involved.”

  “I see.”

  “No, I’m really afraid you don’t, Mr. Landstrom, and it doesn’t matter. Right now, you need to move.”

  There was a sudden sharpness in her voice, and Oliver pricked his ears. That didn’t work so well in human form, but he didn’t shift. Now was not the time to stand out…and he stood out enough as a human. In hybrid form, he’d stand out even more.

  With a sigh he pushed off the wall. “All right, where to?”

  “Follow the child,” Florey ordered.

  Oliver scowled. “What ch…”

  He stopped as he saw her. She was slight of build, but not scrawny, so someone cared for her.

  “And you’d do well to remember that.” Florey’s voice had all the warning of an approaching storm…or a mother watching over a cub.

  He tried to stifle the thought that, if the child was so precious she shouldn’t have been involved in the operation, and failed.

  “Do you want to get off the moon, or not?” Florey asked, her voice sugar sweet. “More importantly, how much do you want to reach your destination alive?”

  It was not good business practice to threaten your client, but Oliver understood where she was coming from.

  “Whoa, there, Mama Bear. I meant no offense.”

  “Then you should be more careful about giving it,” she told him, but her voice was calmer.

  The child danced up to him and took his hand, and he caught her scent, almost dragging his hand out of her grip in surprise.

  “Cat!” The word was out before he could censor it, and she recoiled, only this time, he gripped her hand and wouldn’t let go.

  “Dog!” she spat back, her short, tufty hair bristling.

  Florey made a sound suspiciously like a giggle. “Oh, dear…”

  “What?”

  Florey sighed. “Well, you know how difficult teenaged girls can be…”

  Oliver didn’t, but he suspected he was about to find out.

  “You can’t follow me, if you’re holding my hand!” the girl hissed, yanking it out of his grasp.

  She scrambled out of reach, turned about and trotted purposefully down the corridor. For a minute, all Oliver could do was stare at her, and then he began to walk after her. He’d barely gone two paces before she froze, lifting her face to sniff the air in such a cat-like manner he could almost see fur and a tail.

  And then he could see fur and a tail, as she made a partial shift.

  It was gone before he could work out what that was about—and then she bolted. Oliver nearly lost her as he stared at the space she’d occupied. As he looked for where she’d gone, he heard her voice, but not with his ears.

  “Move your ass, you stupid puppy!”

  The little rat was inside his head!

  “Where are you?” he asked, and a hand waved from a corner twenty feet down the corridor.

  Psi and cat, he thought, loping toward it, and she interrupted him.

  “DUCK!”

  Oliver stooped forward and heard a familiar SPANG as a round slammed into the wall where his head had been.

  Well, fuck! he thought, and launched himself forward. He thought about shifting into his four-legged form, but didn’t have time to get out of the fatigues Li had provided. He didn’t know how many there were, or how far behind they were. Stopping now could be a mistake.

  “Yes,” the girl confirmed it. “Now, run!”

  He ran, grabbing the corner to make the turn and catching sight of her disappearing around a second. Swearing softly to himself, he sped up. This time, he deliberately bounced himself into the corner to make the turn.

  “Hurry up, slowpoke. I thought wolves were supposed to be fast!”

  “My boots are falling off.”

  “Really?” The thought was tinged with curiosity but she didn’t slow down to look.

  His boots were falling off his feet, but Oliver didn’t bother trying to show her. He just focused on trying to catch up. She took another turn and he threw himself after her, his feet sliding on the tiled floor.

  To his relief, there was no second shot. Nor did he hear the sound of pursuing footsteps.

  That worried him.

  As soon as she made it round the corner, the girl came to a halt. Oliver was so busy running that he almost didn’t see her, and when he did, he threw himself back in an attempt to stop. A hissing sound followed by a heavy thump came from behind him, and he glanced back.

  A heavy panel blocked the corridor, shutting off any pursuit.

  He ran into the girl before he realized he was that close. Showing all the agility of a cat, she twisted out from underneath him, and kicked him on his way down.

  “What was that for?” he demanded, hitting the floor with a resounding thump.

  “Not looking where you were going,” she told him, standing well out of grab range as he got to his feet.

  When he was upright again, he looked at her. “Where to now?”